


Holding On

by deansmultitudes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Universe, Funeral, Grief, M/M, Past Character Death, Season/Series 15, nail injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26782411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deansmultitudes/pseuds/deansmultitudes
Summary: Dean saved the Earth and all it got him was getting buried six feet down in it.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	Holding On

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Suptober 2020 prompt #2 'Earth'
> 
> Beta'd by [fangirlingtodeath513](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirlingtodeath513) ♥

Dean saved the Earth and all it got him was getting buried six feet down in it. Sam and Cas dug the grave themselves and it took them so much longer than digging up the bones. Their muscles and hearts couldn’t accept it was Dean Winchester’s body they’d be laying in it. Each shovel closer to saying goodbye.

An hour later it was all over. A rectangle of turned earth and the tombstone Sam carved Dean’s name into.

They didn’t put any flowers on it, they poured out some whiskey instead. Dean would like that but he wouldn’t appreciate the rest. He should have been burned on a pyre, just like every hunter before him. Like every family member and every friend they had to bid farewell to on their way to peace.

Sam and Cas drank that evening and the day after that and Cas would be just fine keeping on drinking, at least until the dirt washed off from the creases in the skin of his palms.

What else is there to do?

Living on in the world without Dean. Cas would rather live without the ground beneath his feet. Every waking moment feels like falling anyway.

“Did I say something?” Cas throws out into the silence of the bunker.

Sam lifts his eyes from the screen, his brow furrowed. “Say something now?”

Cas shakes his head. “As we lowered his coffin. Did I say anything?”

“Yeah, um—” Sam swallows “—I think you said you’d miss him. And that he was a hero and—”

Sam’s voice trembles. Like he can recall every second and the way it felt. Cas can only recall his fingers curling around the wet curd of dirt. The way it broke and spattered across the wooden lid when he tossed it in.

Now there’s dirt beneath Cas’s fingernail that he can’t get out. The same dirt that weighs on Dean’s body.

“We shouldn’t have buried him.”

It was Sam’s choice. He said the pyre was too final, that he couldn’t.

Now, Sam says, “I know.”

“We should have made a pyre.”

“I said I know,” his voice sharper now. “But I’m not gonna go digging him up.”

Sam buried Dean once before and Cas brought him back. But Cas can’t bring him back now. Even Jack couldn’t.

Cas slips the thumbnail under his dirty nail, but it’s too short to scoop the dirt out. 

”Dean doesn’t like tight spaces—”

“He’s dead!” Sam shouts, slamming his laptop shut. “He doesn’t care!”

With that, he leaves and Cas doesn’t see him for a while.

Cas’s tears wet Dean‘s pillow and he knows it’s wrong and he can’t help it. He shouldn’t be sleeping in Dean’s bed without him. But it still smells like Dean and the mattress still remembers the shape of his body.

The frame is so much older. At the top of it, by Cas’s head, the wood splinters. Cas reaches for it, his fingers pull at it and pull despite the ache. At last, a piece of it comes off, thin and sharp. It’s perfect.

Cas pushes the tip between his red, tender skin and the nail. Gently at first, he tries to scrape the dirt out. But it only seems to crawl in deeper and Cas’s teeth bit through his lip but the pain remains. But the pain doesn’t matter.

There are drops of blood now left on Dean’s pillow and Cas can’t sleep in his bed anymore.

Sam comes back but he doesn’t plan to stay. He only needs the rest of his things, some books, and some guns.

“So what, you’re just moving on?”

“I’m gonna stay with Eileen for a while,” Sam says without sparing Cas a glance, like that answers Cas’s question. It does.

“You gonna visit his grave?”

“Cas, could you shut up about the damn grave?” At least now Sam’s looking at him. “Your hand.”

“It’s nothing.” His teeth might have ripped off too much, too deep. Nothing a piece of bandaid couldn’t fix. “I almost got it out.”

“Got what out?” Sam grabs Cas’s hand and lifts it to his eyes. He can’t hide the wince at the sight of the ruin of Cas’s fingernail, at the fresh blood drying over an old scab. “There’s nothing there.”

“The dirt,” Cas says. “The earth from Dean’s grave.”

“I don’t see anything,” Sam says.

“Yeah, ‘cause I almost got it all out,” Cas says with a little bit of pride in his tired voice.

Sam stares at Cas’s hand for a while, then watches Cas’s face for even longer.

“How about we get him out of there and give him a proper funeral?”

Their shovels break the earth and upturn it. They don’t talk and it’s almost like they’re digging out bones. But they’re not and they get a nauseous reminder of it when they open the lid.

They ignore the smell. It’s not easy with the way it tears into their nostrils, but how could a fetor this putrid be Dean? So they ignore it and they handle Dean gently, cradle him like they did the day they brought him home.

They put him on the pile of wood like they should have done right away. Sam hands Cas a lighter.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas says. “I’m sorry we tried to hold on.”

The fire crawls up the woodpiles and embraces Dean’s body like it was supposed to. Soon it will turn all that’s left of Dean to ash.

Cas reaches out to the flames, despite Sam’s protest. With the aching tip of his finger, he caresses the fire and it burns but he doesn’t mind the pain. It’s nothing compared to living in the world without Dean in it.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments always very much appreciated!
> 
> Find this story on [tumblr](https://deansmultitudes.tumblr.com/post/630909919712985088/holding-on-dean-x-cas-angst-09k-written)


End file.
